Motorola Mobility chairman Sanjay Jha announced at an investor relations conference this morning that starting this June, all future Motorola high-end smartphones will include Webtop. Webtop so far is unique to the Motorola Atrix 4G, but it looks that will be changing soon. Mr. Jha also made note that the only reason the Droid Bionic did not ship with Webtop was due to time constraints. Hopefully, this means that it may be enabled in a future update. Motorola's definition of high-end also remains to be seen, but phones that can drive the second "shell" for Webtop mode will likely have dual-core processors and either dual-channel RAM as in the Bionic, or at least 1 GB of "normal" RAM like the Atrix. Don't look for this on the Cliq 2, no matter how bad we want it.
Placing your smartphone into a specially designed dock to create a web appliance does sound like a very nice idea on paper, but the verdict is still out on just how functional it will be. One thing that would help further it along would be to design the docking stations to be universal, and I hope Motorola has this in mind. We'll know more in June. [Motorola]
Reader comments
Motorola to bring Webtop to all future 'high-end' smartphones
Why not have a tablet shell while we are at it?
I want to hook up my DX to a nice touch screen and turn it into a tablet not my computer.
universal docking stations would be awesome. There is a sign of this on the XOOM. My charging station has an adapter to charge with the case on.
Sounds like the Palm Froyo that everyone made fun of a couple of years ago!
The webtop form factor is a good idea IMO . I would say if you want a tablet dock just get a tablet, about the same money. I wonder how many patents Motorola has on this. It will be copied endlessly if they haven't locked it down. Phones are at a power level where the only weakness is the size. Having your cake and eat it too with webtop.
Speaking of universal docking stations, what ever happened to the universal charging cable situation?
Yeah Redfly did it a few years back too. Worked well but lacked support.
Great to see Motorola expanding it Mobile features like this
apparently their vision of future mobile computing is getting closer to actually happens , since they got the visions , resources & hardware to make it
The Atrix is just the beginning
That is good news! Assuming they are smart about making the docking ports fairly universal then the cost of the peripherals should go down. I agree on wanting the tablet form factor as well - unless it cost 500 bucks of course.
Well Motorola did say they're going to stop relying solely on Verizon, so hopefully they will make friends with Sprint and bring this to Sprint!
"the only reason the Droid Bionic did not ship with Webtop was due to time constraints"
Holy #%^&*!!!!! The Bionic has shipped?? :)
& Still no sign of the ThunderBolt !
I can see it coming again , just like the Droid Incredible & the Droid X !!!
People will switch to the Bionic with the shortage (or lack of it) of the ThunderBolt
off-topic :
I really hate the Spam filter !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
DO NOT BUY ANY OF THESE MOTOROLA PHONES. 1GB RAM AND DUAL CORE IS BS.
You're Atrix (beast) only uses 512mb on the phone and other half is reserved for the laptop dock application thats on the phone. Also android 2.2 does not support dual core. Wait for 2.4 (not 2.3) and then purchase a dual core device. I'm returning mine.
If you do not believe me, call Motorola @ 800-734-5870 and ask for a Level 2 "Specialist."
They could not find an answer for me on why my Advanced Task Killer app only shows 512mb after restarting the phone.
just my 2 cents...and your $250.
email me if you want further info
Advanced Task Killer is incorrect. Check the memory usage in the system itself, the RAM is and it's allocation is properly shown there. See this thread at XDA: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=963557
Oh, and I'd uninstall it period. Task killers are more or less a distraction (or worse, an impedance) on any phone running 2.2+, several prominent devs have echoed this fact.
update to my last comment.
Motorola called back and said that the device does use 1GB but it only displays 512mb because of Android 2.2??????!!!!!! LMAO. Wow i'm pretty good with technology and I don't buy this bullsh*t from them. He was rude and disconnected the call after I gave him a piece of my mind.
Everyone Bring down this machine called Motorola. They are ripping you off!!!
Update2: Motorola called back with a different answer now.
Apparently the hardware is actually 1GB of RAM but the Android OS is using the other 512MB memory. So, there you have it kids. Your phone has 1GB of memory but it actually allows you to use only 512 for applications and the rest is dedicated to the Android OS.
As for the Dual-Core issue, the agent stated that she is "looking into it with her supervisors." Lovely!
The kernel on the Atrix supports dual core despite the Atrix running 2.2. http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=11586435&postcount=9